Some reflections from Italy
There were so many interesting talks and activities at this year's EuroCALL conference in Granada that I wasn't even able to check my email much less post a blog! I concentrated on attending talks about using podcasts, blogs, wikis, mobile phones and concordancers. I'm already making plans to use podcasts, wikis and blogs in my courses this coming Fall.
Besides meeting interesting professionals from Greece, France, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, The UK, Ireland, The US, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Colombia, Chile, Switzerland, Ireland, Spain, Holland, Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic, I was able to make contact with Absalom and Rizzi from the University of Melbourne, Australia. We hope to be able to conduct an Italian - English tandem project. Sara' molto interessante secondo noi.
One of the talks I especially appreciated was given by Isabel Perez about the communication, vocabulary building and grammar exercises she has created in her website. She uses a map of the London underground to guide students through the various learning paths she has designed. I have already used other exercises of hers as well as her Happy Verby Gang, so I can't wait to try out her
Web Learning Tube on my A2 students at Padova University's Centro Linguistico. Visit Isabel's site to see all of her materials. What I want to know is, how was she able to be such an active organizer of Eurocall 2006 in Granada and still have time to create such an innovative website? You're amazing, Isabel.
Another well-presented talk was How to do things with words and gestures: Using a multimodal concordancing tool to explore a multimedia corpus by Francesca Coccetta of Padova University. By using Pavia University's multimodal concordancer, MCA she created a multimedia corpus for use at Padova University. Being able to retrieve audio and video materials from the Padova MEC (Multimedia English Course) corpus as I search for various language functions is really going to be a help to me when I prepare new interactive pages for Learning Links, Padova's Online English Course. Great work, Francesca!
I hope to see all of you and your new innovations at next year's EuroCall 2007 conference in Ulster.
Besides meeting interesting professionals from Greece, France, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, The UK, Ireland, The US, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Colombia, Chile, Switzerland, Ireland, Spain, Holland, Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic, I was able to make contact with Absalom and Rizzi from the University of Melbourne, Australia. We hope to be able to conduct an Italian - English tandem project. Sara' molto interessante secondo noi.
One of the talks I especially appreciated was given by Isabel Perez about the communication, vocabulary building and grammar exercises she has created in her website. She uses a map of the London underground to guide students through the various learning paths she has designed. I have already used other exercises of hers as well as her Happy Verby Gang, so I can't wait to try out her
Web Learning Tube on my A2 students at Padova University's Centro Linguistico. Visit Isabel's site to see all of her materials. What I want to know is, how was she able to be such an active organizer of Eurocall 2006 in Granada and still have time to create such an innovative website? You're amazing, Isabel.
Another well-presented talk was How to do things with words and gestures: Using a multimodal concordancing tool to explore a multimedia corpus by Francesca Coccetta of Padova University. By using Pavia University's multimodal concordancer, MCA she created a multimedia corpus for use at Padova University. Being able to retrieve audio and video materials from the Padova MEC (Multimedia English Course) corpus as I search for various language functions is really going to be a help to me when I prepare new interactive pages for Learning Links, Padova's Online English Course. Great work, Francesca!
I hope to see all of you and your new innovations at next year's EuroCall 2007 conference in Ulster.
posted by cloakndagger at 11:01 am
10 Comments:
Nice idea, using the London Underground map, but I'm sure that the map is copyright and cannot be reproduced online without the express permission of Transport for London (TfL). See their copyright message at:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/tandc.shtml
"Unless expressly stated the copyright and other intellectual property rights (such as, design rights, trademarks, patents etc.) in any material provided on the TfL websites remains the property of TfL (or as the case may be another rightful owner). TfL owned material on these websites including text and images, may not be printed, copied, reproduced, republished, downloaded, posted, displayed, modified, reused, broadcast or transmitted in any way, except for the user's own personal non-commercial use. Permission for any other type of use must be obtained."
Note the expression "personal and non-commercial use". This excludes non-commercial educational use, as defined in recent EU copyright legislation.
See the ICT for Language Teachers website for guidance on copyright:
http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_copyright.htm
The key works to consult on copyright and e-learning are:
Casey J. (2004) Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in networked e-learning: a beginners guide for content developers:
http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/publications/johncasey_1.htm
Oppenheim C. (2004) Recent changes to copyright law and the implications for FE and HE:
http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/publications/copyrightcoppenheim.htm
Oppenheim writes:
This new restricted act, that only the copyright owner may authorise third parties to do, is defined as broadcasting the work or making the work available to the public by electronic transmission in such a way that members of the public may access it from a place and at a time individually chosen by them. What constitutes "the public"? Presumably a small sub-set of the public, such as staff and/or students in an educational institution, will be considered to be the public. That is certainly the view of the Department of Trade and Industry, which is the government department responsible for copyright law in the UK. Thus, an institution placing material on an intranet without the copyright owner's permission would be infringing this right, even if relatively few people had access to the intranet.
and...
Much of the copying that goes on within HEIs and FEIs is defensible because of the well-known "fair dealing" exception to copyright, which hitherto has permitted copying for research or private study. The law has changed significantly in this regard. This exception is reduced to fair dealing only for research for a non-commercial purpose, or for private study. Furthermore, "private study" is now defined as NOT including "any study which is directly or indirectly for a commercial purpose". This could have significant implications for those undertaking private study with a view to gaining money in the future, and is discussed further below. There is also a new obligation that sufficient acknowledgement (e.g. the author's name plus a bibliographic citation) is required unless it is impractical. This forces people to use good citing habits, and also hammers home the importance of protecting the author's moral right to be identified as the author of a work.
Just found this reference in a Wikipedia article:
"The current version of the map is on Transport for London's website, but it cannot be included here for copyright reasons."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map
It seems that I'll have to think about that. Thanks for all your references. I never meant to make any money. I have no adverts at all on my site and it's been running since 1997. I pay for the hosting and for the huge number of visits, that is quite a lot every year. Everything there is to be used with my students and I know some other teachers and students use my site for the same educational purposes. I like sharing my work and don't mind spending money on the hosting as far as I can manage.
I myself designed the drawing of the tube for primary education. As to the one for secondary I didn't take it from the Transport for London's website. It took me a long time to find an image that was clear enough and I don't really remember where it was, but be sure that I'll never get any money from this. On the other hand, I hope students feel involved in learning with this idea because that's my only intention.
Definitely I will have to spend some time drawing my own version of the underground for secondary (the small one is already mine) because I see this idea of the web learning tube is really causing interest and that sometimes leads to not so generous feelings. I'll do it as soon as I can finish with all the work I have accumulated in the last weeks.
I suppose I can publish my own drawing, otherwise no one could ever paint a new version of a famous building or site.
Apart from that, thanks Suzanne for appreciating my work. It's a pleasure being able to share it with the rest of the world.
If you reproduce your own version of the Tube Map it is still in breach of copyright. The same applies to most images and photographs that have been published elsewhere.
The general principle is that if you create an image that is clearly based on another published work you are in breach of copyright. Similarly, if you create a text that is clearly based on another published work you are in breach of copyright. In both cases you can be accused of creating a "derivative work". This is quite explicit in copyright law. The two main exceptions are criticism and parody. You are allowed to publicise criticism of a published work or a parody.
And there are some bizarre restrictions. For example, the Eiffel Tower illuminations are copyright and the Eiffel Tower website (SNTE) states that it is OK to publish photos of the Eiffel Tower in the day but not by night! See:
http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/uk/pratique/faq/index.html
Remember:
1. Offering materials for free rather than for commercial gain makes no difference as far as copyright is concerned. It is still a violation of copyright.
2. There are no automatic concessions for educational use. Although there are some concessions they are not as comprehensive as most people think.
See Brad Templeon's 10 myths page:
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
Make sure that you include your own copyright message at your site to deter other people from stealing and selling your materials. Yes, I can refer to several cases where this has happened! My materials have been ripped off three times. I found the offenders via Google. Here is the message that appears at the bottom of all my personal Web pages.
© Graham Davies 2006. The materials contained at this website are subject to copyright. The materials may be downloaded, printed and used for non-commercial purposes in a teaching or training environment. If these materials are reproduced in any form the source of the materials and the author must be acknowledged. Reproduction of these materials in whole or in part on a public website or intranet is forbidden unless agreed by the author. (See, for example, my page at http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/websites.htm)
My elder daughter is a professional graphic designer and has worked for large companies such as Electronic Arts, Fox and Virgin. She has alerted me to many copyright restrictions, especially the use of images.
I just checked Transport for London’s website regarding “derivative works”. It is quite clear that they do not allow this. The warning appears on several of their pages. You should be very careful about reproducing maps. If you create your own map then make sure it does not resemble closely (colours, layout, etc) a published map.
Regarding taking your own photographs or making your own drawings or paintings, you can do this and publish them on the Web, However, if you publish a photograph including a composition that looks as if it might be derived from a famous published photograph or image, especially well-known advertisements, then you might be in trouble. There are numerous documented cases on the Web.
Some hotels, e.g. my local Holiday Inn, forbid the taking of photographs in certain areas, e.g. the swimming pool. There is a famous example of a real growing tree that is subject to copyright, namely the “Lone Cypress”, which is the symbol of Pebble Beach golf club, California, and which grows on property owned by the golf club. You can photograph the tree (I did), but only for personal, non-commercial use.
Thanks for the advice. My intention is to create my own map, different enough.
I know what you mean by stealing materials, it happened to me also, but this is not the case.
What I'm using is the idea of progressing along the stations and the cultural places located near tube stations. And I'm not making any money from it. I'm just teaching. So hopefully no one will say anything when I use my own image.
Just a quick comment to say how much I also liked your presentation and your idea, Isabel! I can see that copyright issues can be problematic, but linking activities to places through a simple map interface gives a neatly organized overview, and adds a feeling of authenticity. Good luck with your future work!
The work of Francesca Coccetta also sounds interesting. Can I read more somewhere?
Yes, the Tube Map IS a nice idea. I recall something similar being produced many years ago, using the Paris Métro map.
Just to clarify my intentions:
I have written and advised teachers extensively on copyright issues for nearly 20 years. My advice is offered to keep them out of trouble and to help them or their institutions to avoid expensive legal disputes. The best advice I can give in this particular instance is to contact Transport for London and tell them exactly how you wish to use their existing map or to adapt it. You may find that they are quite happy for you to do so, providing you acknowledge its source.
Many big organisations, such as the BBC, are only too happy to support education in this way. I had to contact the BBC a couple of years ago for permission to include a screenshot of one of their websites in a printed publication. They replied quickly and granted me the permission without requesting a fee.
Regardless of the law, it is standard practice (and, of course, courteous) to make proper acknowledgements of your sources, e.g. as you would have been expected to do in your PhD or Masters thesis. But because people are not doing this the law on copyright has got much tougher, especially with regard to Internet publications, and now universities in the UK are using anti-plagiarism software called "Turnitin" developed by JISC, the joint informations systems committee that works for UK universities and colleges. See the Turnitin wesbite: http://www.submit.ac.uk
One of the ways in which copyright holders can punish copyright violators is to insist that they remove the contents of their website and display a message indicating that a copyright violation has taken place. This website is the result of an action taken against someone who published a copy of Gerard Hoffnung's story "The Bricklayer's Lament":
http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/work/bricklayer.html
Hoffnung died in 1959 but his work is still subject to copyright and will be until 70 years after his death. I think his widow still looks after his estate.
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